SOCIAL JUSTICE THEATRE PROJECT

OUR PURPOSE

The Social Justice Theatre Project (formerly Social Justice Festival) began as an idea five years ago with a conversation between Roosevelt High School’s theatre teacher, Jo Lane, and Portland Playhouse Director of Education, Nikki Weaver. Their vision was manifested with our first Social Justice Project in 2016. This year we are bringing the ideas to life at four partnering high schools.

The main purpose of The Social Justice Theatre Project is to engage students within their own schools to communicate more, to share ideas, to challenge assumptions, and to question society through a visceral performance of text, research, and performance. We aim to connect our students with a community that extends beyond their school walls.

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WHAT IS SOCIAL JUSTICE?

How do we talk about social justice? How do we define it? How do we take ACTION? The program allows students to do all of these things through the power of investigation, imagination, and research.

Students will create devised work that asks the audience to take their own action as a response to what they see. Each school will perform a 30 minute piece, and each school will perform at all three schools over two weekends in the spring. Led by dedicated teaching artists the program seeks to create a visceral response to understanding more about a certain topic.

PERFOMANCE SCHEDULE

Monday, April 27Tuesday, April 28

(Doors open at 6:30pm, 7:00pm performance)Advance Tickets: $10Pay-What-You-Will at the door

This year, the Social Justice Theatre Project will take on Gun Violence with da Vinci Arts Middle School as part of #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence.

The impact gun violence has on young people in the US isdevastating. American children and teenagers are 4 times more likely to die by gunfire than their counterparts in Canada, 7 times more likely than young people in Israel, and 65 times more likely to be killed with a gun than children and teenagers in the United Kingdom.1

And every 70 minutes in America someone under the age of 25 dies due to gun violence.